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The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

danielhomola.com

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Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#381

Post by dag100 »

9rx wrote: post #376
dag100 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't responded to my second statement: > And, as soon as they spend the cash, somehow their sales have retroactively gone from being donations to fair transactions. Allowing the future to affect the past is clearly absurd. According to you, any transaction in which one party A proffers a non-currency resource, and the other, B, offers currency, is in fact the signing of a contract in which B promises to provid…

> Framing it in terms of debt simply confuses people. Quite possibly. But that doesn't actually matter because if they don't understand something they will ask questions until they do understand, just as it seems you now do. That's how communication works. It is bidirectional for good reason. I admittedly don't understand what you are trying to add with this. What are we supposed to learn from this?

I would argue that most people already understand money in the way you describe it: as a medium of exchange. Your description of money just frames this function through the idea of an obligation of some sort which doesn't exist actually for anyone except the government.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#382

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

deepspace wrote: post #362
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. The median household income in the US is around $85K https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ The median individual household is $55K https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ Neither are living on the streets.

You illustrate the point perfectly. "Not living on the streets" is not exactly a measure of prosperity. With $55K, you cannot afford a decent place to live, a health event can and will bankrupt you, and retirement is out of the question.

If you go by the 30% of your budget guideline making $55K a year as a single person you can definitely find a place to rent for $1375 in a decent neighborhood.

https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#383

Post by 9rx »

dag100 wrote: post #381
9rx wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Framing it in terms of debt simply confuses people. Quite possibly. But that doesn't actually matter because if they don't understand something they will ask questions until they do understand, just as it seems you now do. That's how communication works. It is bidirectional for good reason. I admittedly don't understand what you are trying to add with this. What are we supposed to learn from this?

I would argue that most people already understand money in the way you describe it: as a medium of exchange. Your description of money just frames this function through the idea of an obligation of some sort which doesn't exist actually for anyone except the government.

There is no framing beyond my intent. One may originally misinterpret my intent, but that's again why communication is bidirectional. I am still unsure of your intent in this. My failed interpretation is that you are trying to invent some kind of hypothetical communication problem that isn't one, but what are you actually trying to get across here?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#384

Post by dag100 »

9rx wrote: post #383
dag100 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that most people already understand money in the way you describe it: as a medium of exchange. Your description of money just frames this function through the idea of an obligation of some sort which doesn't exist actually for anyone except the government.

There is no framing beyond my intent. One may originally misinterpret my intent, but that's again why communication is bidirectional. I am still unsure of your intent in this. My failed interpretation is that you are trying to invent some kind of hypothetical communication problem that isn't one, but what are you actually trying to get across here?

What I'm trying to say is that I don't see any benefit in describing cash as "debt" and instead find it misleading as it implies an obligation to be fulfilled that doesn't actually exist for anyone except the government, and certainly not its customers.

In fact, to address an earlier comment:

> Not because they think you, average Joe who cannot think of anything to offer the world beyond simple labor, will actually ever come up with some magical thing they want to buy. But because they know that the idea of holding debt gives them social standing; prestige. They aren't taking your promise expecting something real in return — hence why the debt simply accumulates — they are taking your promise because having that promise on paper offers them value.

> And in some robot/AI future where humans no longer can even offer labor as something of marginal value, holding debt will still offer social standing and prestige all the same. Therefore there is no reason why these companies wouldn't continue to sell products to humans for fictional future promises, just like they already are.

The cash Average Joe proffers for a product - what you describe as "debt" - wouldn't be in Joe's possession without first being exchanged for Average Joe's simple labour. Simply put - Average Joe cannot be indebted to Apple without first trading his labour for someone else's indebtedness, which he then gives to Apple in return for his iPhone. If his labour has no value, he has no unit by which to even denominate any potential indebtedness he may offer.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#385

Post by bdangubic »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #329
bdangubic wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both my wife and I have been contractors for decade+ and have been with Kaiser and are paying $1.1k/month for Bronze-ish plan (1 child)

How does that work if you have a pre-existing condition? I am honestly curious

ACA put a stop to that

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#386

Post by erelong »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #380
erelong wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is, compare credentials with reputation. A programmer who possesses no credentials might create "good" software that is validated as "good" even by those possessing credentials. However, a person with credentials related to programming, might produce malicious software that betrays the "trust" of the credential. Thus, just like the fallacy of the labor theory of value, credentials do not inherentl…

It sounds like you have a particular bone to pick though you're only doing it by talking in generalities in the OP, and now you're talking about programming credentials. I don't know of any required credential to write software or be a programmer. When I think about credentials, I think about doctors and lawyers. In both cases, I'm going to demand that the people I work with are credentialed, and there is no way that…

It's mostly a problem with "requiring" the credentials by law

I have no problem with you wanting your doctors or lawyers to have credentials for your own needs

I take issue with people requiring me to seek doctors or lawyers with credentials, as that then has set up a compulsory system which reduces the quality and quantity of law and medicine produced, which has predictably created things like doctor shortages today (see news stories on doctor shortages)

So AI will fill some of these shortages if there aren't burdensome regulations put in place to prevent it from doing so (such as regulations that currently exist)

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#387

Post by 9rx »

dag100 wrote: post #384
9rx wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no framing beyond my intent. One may originally misinterpret my intent, but that's again why communication is bidirectional. I am still unsure of your intent in this. My failed interpretation is that you are trying to invent some kind of hypothetical communication problem that isn't one, but what are you actually trying to get across here?

What I'm trying to say is that I don't see any benefit in describing cash as "debt" and instead find it misleading as it implies an obligation to be fulfilled that doesn't actually exist for anyone except the government, and certainly not its customers. In fact, to address an earlier comment: > Not because they think you, average Joe who cannot think of anything to offer the world beyond simple labor, will actually e…

1. Well, cash is debt. Obviously all things in life are dependent on perspective, but the framing should be useful to separate the idea of a company seeking cash not because they want the raw silver, or what have you. If you try to think too hard about it you might end up confused, but then you ask for clarification and then are no longer confused. This is where I fail to understand what you are trying to say. We get it. You didn't understand the intent originally. That is why you asked for clarification. But your subsequent comments indicate that, upon receiving that clarification, that you do now understand. So the communication worked perfectly. My continued flawed interpretation is that you still seem to be trying to invent some contrived hypothetical, but that doesn't make sense, so I will have to ask you to clarify once again. What are you trying to say here?

2. At least where democracy is found, the government and the customers are the exact same people. The distinction you are trying to draw isn't clear either. What do you think government is if not people?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#388

Post by OkayPhysicist »

monknomo wrote: post #378
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is currency is inherently clumpy. While value is always judged and assigned to things, the existence of a static, cumulative ledger of it is not a requirement. It doesn't take a lot to recreate the capitalism to feudalism pipeline. If you have currency, small imbalances in resources and needs compound over time, creating imbalances in wealth. Imbalances in wealth provide the opportunity to leverage that i…

you give a nod to the solution. If we have an undamped oscillator, or a system with a tendency in an undesirable direction, we can damp it. And currency (given that we make it up and have a reasonable degree of control over its worth and distribution) does not have to be a static cumulative ledger

Any solution needs the damping function to be intrinsic to the system, rather than tacked on as policy. Policy ends up being dictated by the powerful, so if your system's only check against runaway wealth accumulation is policy, eventually your guardrails will be demolished. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow. But eventually, self-propelled wealth wins.

There are models of currency that try to include such dampening intrinsically (Tankies love talking about various experimental forms of currency as "labor vouchers" to try and sidestep the "moneyless" pitch of Communism), but I've yet to see one that really addresses the "wealth begets wealth, hierarchy begets hierarchy" problem.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#389

Post by swed420 »

tunesmith wrote: post #356

The article says it's from first principles and looks pretty deep, and I didn't have the time to exhaustively read it myself, so I used my side project concludia to try and analyze and graph the argument... you can see the argument graph here if you're interested in that kind of thing. https://concludia.org/step/6f3cbaa2-65d4-3c44-8c1f-23f6ddf2b... Reading the thread below, I'm always curious where in the argument th…

Cool concept.

Have you considered submitting a Show HN post?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#390

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #323
apercu wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until I see median real income start to actually go down I'm not sure I understand this, it doesn't feel like what I have "lived" for the least 30 years. Median real income might not be down statistically, but the purchasing power of professional incomes relative to housing, education, and major life costs clearly feels lower than it did in the mid 90s. An inflation-adjusted six-figure salary today does not deliver…

According to a random inflation calculator I found with a lazy Google search, $50,000 in 1996 is about $106,000 today. Was $50,000 a lot of money in 1996? Did it afford a nice house in a good neighborhood? Or is it that 6 figures just isn't what it used to be?

I had my first house built in the burbs of Atlanta - 2700 square feet 3-2 and a bonus room for $170k.

Going by the house shouldn’t be more than 3.5x your income. That puts the necessary income less than $50K.

Heck I had my second house built in the northern burbs of Atlanta in “the good school system” for $335k in 2016. We sold it in 2024 for exactly twice the price.

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